2.5.1 The great continent of Sahul The ancient continent of Sahul comprised what is now Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania and the Aru Islands of eastern Indonesia. Sahul existed at a time when Australia’s geography was very different from today. The Pleistocene climate changed between ice ages and warm times. When the ice formed, it created the land bridges between Asia and Australia. People travelled from Africa, through Asia and into Australia. We don’t know exactly where they first landed in Australia (Sahul) because rising sea levels covered those land bridges when the Ice Age ended. The seas separated New Guinea from Australia about 8000 years ago and Tasmania about 6000 years ago. Humans likely took another 4000 years to settle across the Australian continent after arriving. 2.5.2 Megafauna: The creatures of the Dreaming Archaeological evidence shows that humans and giant animals, called megafauna, lived in Australia together for 15 000 to 20 000 years. At Cuddie Springs in northwest New South Wales, which is land of the Muruwari, Ngemba, Weilwan and Yualwarri Peoples, scientists found stone tools and bones of animals like Genyornis , Diprotodon and Sthenurus . Rock art across Australia also shows these giant animals. The detailed pictures suggest that the artists saw these animals in real life. For example, on Yolngu Country, in Arnhem Land, there are rock paintings of a very powerful animal with a large jaw and thick snout. These paintings are thought to be 40 000 to 50 000 years old. The Aranda people tell of Kadimakara, a giant animal that lived in the trees when places like Willandra Lakes and Lake Eyre were lush. As the land dried, Kadimakara fell, and its bones were found near the shrinking lake. Palaeontologists have discovered leopard-like Thylacoleo bones and other giant animals in this area. Sahul had at least 50 unique megafauna, mostly marsupials, some of which laid eggs. These included hoppers, scavengers, burrowers, predators and browsers. During the late Pleistocene, many marsupials were much larger than today. Genyornis was a giant emu and Sthenurus a huge kangaroo. The ancient wombat, Phascolonus , was up to eight times bigger than modern wombats and could dig large burrows. Diprotodon , another wombat-like marsupial, was as big as a hippopotamus with a head over one metre long and a koala-like nose pad.
SOURCE2 Lizards like Megalania prisca , now extinct, were up to seven metres long and had curved teeth.
32 Jacaranda Humanities Alive 7 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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